


The long-haul girl?

by yourlibrarian



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, Gen, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-05 18:43:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6716701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourlibrarian/pseuds/yourlibrarian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So many discussions I've seen about Riley and Buffy are focused on Buffy. Most people seem to agree that he was not the long-haul guy for her (regardless of who, if anyone, they think is). But I realized that Buffy wasn't the girl for him either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The long-haul girl?

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted August 5 2006

So many discussions I've seen about Riley and Buffy are focused on Buffy. Most people seem to agree that he was not the long-haul guy for her (regardless of who, if anyone, they think is). But I realized that Buffy wasn't the girl for him either. Their levels of feeling for one another differed mostly because of their function for one another. I think Buffy was to Riley very much like Angel was to Buffy -- a figure of fascination and desire who made the desirer step out of himself into new possibilities -- but with whom a relationship was unworkable. Mind you, I say that re: Buffy and Angel not because I think they are permanently unworkable, but because at the time they separated it was the sensible decision to make. They could very well have a diamond shaped relationship, closeness at the beginning, a wide separation over time, returning to a closeness later in life. It could even be the same is true for Buffy and Riley, but I don't think so. And that's because for Buffy and Angel, the effect was similar on both sides. With Buffy and Riley it was largely one-sided, and it was largely Riley who met the challenges and did the shifting.

In some ways I think that's why religion is a very interesting lens with which to view the changes Riley went through over the course of a season and a half.

I've seen it suggested that Riley went through a crisis of faith but probably returned to it more strongly at some point. I think this is rather likely, especially if he and Sam (or whoever) had kids. So many people who haven't been religious suddenly return to their childhood church, or some other one, at that time. Riley lost faith in many things during S4 -- his employer, his colleagues, his teachers, his worldviews, his own sense of self, and eventually, I think, Buffy. I think what both taught the other is to learn to take responsibility for their own life courses.

On Buffy's side I always found these quotes quite fascinating in their contrast:

S4 BUFFY: But I can't help thinking - isn't that where the fire comes from? Can a nice, safe relationship be that intense? I know it's nuts, but.. part of me believes that real love and passion have to go hand in hand with pain and fighting.

S6 BUFFY: I could never *trust* you enough for it to be love.

SPIKE: (scoffing) Trust is for old marrieds, Buffy! Great love is wild and passionate and dangerous. It burns and consumes.

BUFFY: Until there's nothing left. Love like that doesn't last.

Of course Buffy and Riley were coming from opposite points of view in S4. And whereas Riley may have shown Buffy that "nice and safe" is never completely either one, but also requires work and negotiation, Buffy was important in making Riley's fundamental goodness relevant. Although Riley was essentially decent, his limited world view at the start of S4 didn't give it much weight. It was only when he had tested his instincts and beliefs in a wider spectrum that they became really meaningful. Yet within their relationship, Buffy became ever clearer about who she was and Riley began to lose that sense. (One could argue that in S6 that Buffy had lost her sense of herself, but I actually saw that as Buffy fighting her own sense of responsibility, not who she was.)

I think long-term Buffy wouldn't have been good for Riley's development. He needed to have his eyes opened and his moral compass field tested. But ultimately Riley had a different path to follow, one which involved some of his original plans, but one where he knew the reasons for why he made Choice A or Choice B, and considered the potential ramifications of his actions. He returned to the military as he would likely return to his faith, but now taking a different position within them -- one where he became truly active in his own life. From those engaged, and responsive behaviors would come the intensity that Buffy first spoke of, and the challenges that make commitment something real. 

Likewise Buffy seemed to learn that a relationship was not something where you were either buffeted by fate, or had something handed to you like a static object, but something you forged together with another person, and which had a mutual sense of purpose and direction. For that, of course, one needed an idea of what that purpose and direction was, hence Buffy's cookie dough speech. I think Riley had purpose and direction before he met Buffy, but no real understanding of their meaning, so in the end he wasn't reworking himself from scratch. Perhaps that (combined with far less personal trauma) helped to set him on course a little sooner. Buffy however always faced a conflict between what she wanted and what she had to do. Her arc on the show showed her in a series of recommitments to her work, but with an essentially directionless personal life. It'll be interesting to see in the S8 comics where an ability to focus on that personal life has taken her.


End file.
